Dr. Timothy Mitchell
Rapid City Area Schools
Systems Change 2013
tim.mitchell@k12.sd.us
www.rcas.org
Our decisions will never be perfect, but they
can be better, bolder and wiser.
The right process can steer us towards the
right choice.
And the right choice, at the right moment,
can make all the difference.
“The Snow Day That
Wasn’t”
What could be your
“Crossing Guard”
dilemma?
“Leadership is about going
somewhere. If you and your
people don’t know where you are
going, your leadership doesn’t
matter.”
Ken Blanchard
The hardest part of leadership is
winning the support for the
bold and necessary decisions
that define where you want to
lead your organization.
“There is nothing more difficult to plan, more
doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to
manage than the creation of a new order of
things…Whenever his enemies have the
ability to attack the innovator they do so with
the passion of partisans, while the others
defend him sluggishly, so that the innovator
and his party alike are vulnerable”
Niccolo Machiavelli
1. You encounter a choice
2. You analyze your options
3. You make a choice
4. Then you live with the choice
1. Narrow Framing makes you miss options
2. Confirmation Bias leads you to gather selfserving information
3. Short-term Emotions will often tempt you to
make the wrong one
4. You are often overconfident about how the
future will unfold
What’s in our spotlight = the most
accessible information + our
interpretation of that information .
But that will rarely be all that we need
to make a good decision.
Core Difficulty of Decision Making
What’s in the spotlight will rarely be
everything we need to make a good
decision, but we won’t always
remember to shift the light.
Researchers have found “process matters”
more than analysis – by a factor of six
Superb analysis is useless unless the
decision process gives it a fair hearing
It is not the WHAT – It is the HOW
Our decision track record is not great – trusting
our gut or conducting rigorous analysis won’t
fix it.
The pros and cons process won’t correct these
problems -- But the WRAP process will!!!
A better decision process substantially
improves the results of the decision.
The WRAP Process
To make better choices, we must avoid the
most common decision-making biases. Being
aware of these biases isn’t sufficient to avoid
them, but a process can help. The WRAP
Process can help us make better, bolder
decisions.
Widen Your Options
Reality-Test Your Assumptions
Attain Distance Before Deciding
Prepare to be Wrong
Avoid Narrow Framing
Often our options are far more plentiful
We need to uncover new options
What if our current options disappeared?
Multitracking
Consider options simultaneously
Beware of “sham” options
Push for “this and that” rather than “this or
that”
Find someone who has solved the problem
Try Laddering: Local, Regional and Distant
When you feel stuck-Look Inside/Look Outside
Consider the Opposite
Spark constructive disagreement
Confirmation Bias-self-serving information
Ask Disconfirming Questions
Force yourself-takes discipline
Test a deliberate mistake
Zoom Out, Zoom In
Inside view-our evaluation of the situation
Outside view-how things generally unfold
Outside view-usually more accurate
Helps you to gather the best information
OOCH
Running small experiments—rather than
jumping in
Common hiring error– interview—predicting
success
Why predict when we can know?
Overcome Short-term Emotion
Emotions tempt us to make decisions that are
bad long-term
Attain Distance
Look from an observer’s view
What would I tell my best friend to do in this
situation?
Honor Your Core Priorities
Agonizing decisions are often a sign of conflict
with your core
Identify core to resolve present and future
dilemmas
Go on offense against lesser priorities
Bookend the Future
Consider a range of outcomes
Prepare for the unforeseen— “safety factor”
Anticipate problems
Prepare for adversity and success
Set a Tripwire
We can go on autopilot—leaving past decisions
unquestioned
Can snap us awake and make us realize we have
choices
Consider deadlines and partitions
It is remarkably difficult to cut our losses and
walk away.
The consequences of escalation can be
disastrous!!
To understand:
Sunk costs
ego threat
How can you ensure a decision seems fair?
WRAP – contributes to that sense of fairness
It allows people to understand how the decision
is made and gives them comfort that decisions
will be made in a consistent manner.
The goal is to inspire you to use a better
process for making decisions. The process
need not take a long time to be effective.
What a process provides is confidence.
It will not make it easy or always make it turn
out right but it will empower you to make
bolder results.
http://heathbrothers.com
Resources:
Overview-one page
Decisive Workbook
12 Decision Situations
Decisive Podcasts
Decisive Book Club Guide
Our decisions will never be perfect, but they
can be better, bolder and wiser.
The right process can steer us towards the
right choice.
And the right choice, at the right moment,
can make all the difference.